Introduction: Science and Common Sense Long before the beginnings of modern civilization, men ac- quired vast funds of information about their environment. ...

Develops a structuralist understanding of mathematics, as an alternative to set- or type-theoretic foundations, that respects classical mathematical truth while ...

On the neo-Fregean approach to the foundations of mathematics, elementary arithmetic is analytic in the sense that the addition of a principle wliich may be held to IMJ explanatory of the concept of cardinal number to a suitable second-order logical basis suffices for the derivation of its basic laws. This principle, now commonly called Hume's principle, is an example of a Fregean abstraction principle. In this paper, I assume the correctness of the neo-Fregean position on elementary aritlunetic and seek to (...) explain one way in which it may be extended to encompass the theory of real numbers, introducing the reals, by means of suitable further abstraction principles, as ratios of quantities. (shrink)

This paper sets out a new framework for discussing a long-standing problem in the philosophy of mathematics, namely the connection between the physical world and a mathematical domain when the mathematics is applied in science. I argue that considering counterfactual situations raises some interesting challenges for some approaches to applications, and consider an approach that avoids these challenges.

While Frege’s own attempt to provide a purely logical foundation for arithmetic failed, Hume’s principle suffices as a foundation for elementary arithmetic. It is known that the resulting system is consistent—or at least if second-order arithmetic is. Some philosophers deny that HP can be regarded as either a truth of logic or as analytic in any reasonable sense. Others—like Crispin Wright and I—take the opposed view. Rather than defend our claim that HP is a conceptual truth about numbers, I explain (...) one way it may be possible to extend our view beyond elementary arithmetic to encompass the theory of real numbers. My approach has affinities to the leading ideas of Frege’s own treatment of the reals, although differing in one fundamental way. I attempt, like the HP approach to elementary arithmetic, to obtain the reals very directly by means of abstraction principles without any essential reliance on a theory of sets. This is the most natural way of extending the neo-Fregean position to the reals. (shrink)

This book analyzes the different ways mathematics is applicable in the physical sciences, and presents a startling thesis--the success of mathematical physics ...

Reprint of the original, first published in 1919.